As I understand reading carefully - this is only an issue in case you switch off dynamic contrast. Does not look like PQ improvement. @Philips-MODS
Please elaborate on the PQ improvement - users here are tech savvy to understand. Issue with above quote is that it contains some Philips engineers' specific slang that is NOT commonly used terminology.
Thank you in advance.

Example:
16:9 content on 21:9 TV: black bars on the left/right are not black - they are grey. I can "see" that in this area the "backlight" is on. It also does not matter which setting of dynamic backlight is chosen.

In general I have never had big issues with local dimming operation. Upgraded to 14.99 and watched some parts of Harry Potter 3 - many dark scenes and TV was performing brilliantly. But that is only like 10 minutes observation. Have to use the TV more, to give qualified opinion.

@Toengel
On my 52PFL9606 I don't notice issues with backlight ON under black bars when picture is not 16x9.EDIT: On further testing LEDs are ON under black bars. Clearly seen when watching slightly of the center of the screen. Had to lower my setting for Contrast&Brightness to 50 and Gamma goes at 2. Black levels are now acceptable, although not perfect as they have(and MUST) be.

Offtopic: Just run a test and counted local dimming zones, because I see some speculations around. Result 16x18(288) individual zones. So it is 120x60 pixel size per zone. Also I notice zones are better shaped/separated in the middle part of the screen, while at the side edges they become more diffused and spread over larger area than expected.

Example:
16:9 content on 21:9 TV: black bars on the left/right are not black - they are grey. I can "see" that in this area the "backlight" is on. It also does not matter which setting of dynamic backlight is chosen.

Can somebody confirm?

Toengel@Alex

I totaly agree, i think local diming is almost off now or very slow to react to the brigthness of the picture, sometimes i can still see it using diferent levels of backlight between dark and light areas but not has much has before.

I think people didn't understood how that function works or simple didn't like it because they were always complaining about it, i mention it here in a previous post that i saw areas of the screen that the backlight was adjusting to the brigthness of the picture, and i thought it was the local diming kicking in.
I admit that sometimes it was a too much sensitive but now looks like my old TV that to make a brigth part of the screen it had to increase the backlight of the all panel, making dark areas gray...

Correct me if i'm wrong but the local dimming is the ability that the panel has to make diferent backlight levels in diferent areas of the screen. If i'm not mistake the panel is divided in 224(more or less) areas where the backlight level can be controlled independently.

Also it looks like the dynamic contrast is using higher levels now.

I'm thinking in downgrading the firmware.... if i don't see anyother improvements. Gonna test it somemore with some movies with lots of dark scenes a test it with white subtitles, but the first impression was not good....

I HAVE ONE AND I CAN ASSURE THAT 58PFL9956 IN MY CASE THE LOCALDIMMING WORKS MUCH BETTER THAN BEFORE. NO LONGER GOES CRAZY IN CERTAIN SCENES. PREVIOUSLY HAD A MODEL 2010 (9955) NOT HAD THESE PROBLEMS ARE SO THAN TALK. FACT IMAGE IS NOW paler than BEFORE, BUT I HAVE FIXED THE BRIGHTNESS DOWN SLIGHTLY, AND RAISING THE ADJUSTMENT OF GAMMA. COULD ALSO OBSERVED THAT WORKS BEST MODE LOCALDIMMIN STANDARD. EXAMPLE IN A DARK SKY SCENE WITH STARS (FILM 2012), DISAPPEAR WITH THE STARS BEST PICTURE ADJUSTMENT BECAUSE too dark, BUT WITH A SET STANDARD LOOKS DEEP SKY BLACK CLEARLY SEEN THE STARS. I DO NOT SEE THIS SET THE SIDELINES IN GREY, BLACK LOOK.

In general I have never had big issues with local dimming operation. Upgraded to 14.99 and watched some parts of Harry Potter 3 - many dark scenes and TV was performing brilliantly. But that is only like 10 minutes observation. Have to use the TV more, to give qualified opinion.

@Toengel
On my 52PFL9606 I don't notice issues with backlight ON under black bars when picture is not 16x9.

Offtopic: Just run a test and counted local dimming zones, because I see some speculations around. Result 16x18(288) individual zones. So it is 120x60 pixel size per zone. Also I notice zones are better shaped/separated in the middle part of the screen, while at the side edges they become more diffused and spread over larger area than expected.

I did a couple of hours of testing tonight on my 46PFL9706T and had good results:

Local dimming:
- Issues that were clearly bugs (horizontally dimmed bars and strong fluctuations) seem to be gone.
- Works better than before. Seems more responsive.
- Abstract computer graphics, like the Boxee GUI, has been problematic but now only has minor issues.
- Subtitles don't affect/confuse dimming anymore, at least on my tests.
- There are still issues with zone fluctuations in some scenes, but the effect is less pronounced compared to how it was in the previous firmware. You can test it with "The Dark Knight" at 26:29 where there is a dark scene where the camera rotates around the characters.
- The contrast gain and discoloring that occurred when a zone transitioned from very dark to very bright is almost gone on movie material. It is still present on some Xbox 360 games, but a lot better than before.
- Dirty screen effect (DSE) is still there, but as with the other issues, rarer and less visible than before.

I haven't been able to confirm if the audio crackle bug (over optical out) has been fixed since it happens randomly and rarely, but so far so good.

The PNM bug has not been a problem for me, but I tested it now and it seems to work as intended.

All in all a very good update. Nice work!

However, some criticism is in order. It took way too long to get this fix out. Also, refusing to acknowledge a problem does not make it go away. I have been told by both Philips and the service repair shop that nothing is wrong, and lo and behold, here we are with a firmware update that fixes those non-existant problems. That is not good customer service, especially when the issues were well documented.

I have to be honest and change my previous opinion, after a few adjustments on the backlight level(Change from 70 to 50) and using HD movie material, the blacks that i loved are back, but i still get the feeling sometimes that the tv is a little bit slower changing the level of the black light when changing from a bright to a dark scene. But it can be psicologic. :P

However i still notice by using the active control option, that the tv is using more dynamic contrast, but adjusting the levels in the backlight contrast and video contrast options seems to resolved the issue.

Gonna watch some more tv, but for now i apologize for my previous post, because looks like this time Philips really made some improvements in the image performance/quality with this firmware.

Bjornruud - I totaly agree with you, philips has to improve his comunication channels with customers, whether it's thru this forum or customer support line and try to always give acurate feedback, and not just stay in silence. No/Wrong feedback = Unhappy customers!

Ps.: Gonna ask santa the fix for the sleep timer bug and a short cut for it(maybe thru the green remote button in the power savings options) for christmas!

the new firmware is super good just watched through the first lord of the rings movie and had dynamic back lighting set to stamdard and it is true about 8 of 10. I think the best picture setting is still to active but it depends on the movie so i prefer standard. i havent tried best power yet. the pbm fix also seem to work. so basicly very happy tonight, well done philips it is the first time i ever feel my tv is a real top model
this is bt far the best firmware release, its like getting a new tv .)

WOW! Overwhelmingly positive feedback! Great to hear that! I will test when I am back home today.

@kookaburra
I counted number of individually controlled zones using test file "Backlight test DivX dot2.avi" . It is a white fat dot moving horizontally and vertically on black background. In the dark you can see how the zones light up sequentially when white dot passes over them.

Then there is only one issue left for me, That is the autozoom or autofill issue. If I start TV on HDMI1 and there is a 4:3 scene. The TV does not scale or autofill the screen. If I zap to HDMI2 and back, the TV automatically removes the 4:3 bars on the side and fills the screen with picture....

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